The DNA of Mexico City - Part I

At the turn of the 20th Century, Mexico City had a population of around 500,000 people and there are now over 21 million people who call the megacity home. It is the largest city in the Americas, it is the largest Spanish-speaking city in the world and it is the world’s oldest capital city.

We begin this episode by asking, what are the planetary characteristics of this location and how have they shaped the city that has emerged here?

As we will discover, this is probably one of the most unusual places to find a city.

We are hugely grateful to the esteemed experts who joined us in this episode to unpack the survival of Mexico City. Thank you to Gabriela Jauregui, Tatiana Bilbao, Onésimo Flores-Dewey, Matthew Vitz, Mauricio Tenorio-Trillo, Juan Villoro, Ana Elena Mallet Cárdenas and Felipe Correa. We also wish to thank Gabriela Gómez-Mont for all of her support in connecting us with many of these inspiring and experienced experts.

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Bass Vibes - Rollin at 5 by Kevin MacLeod is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Source: http://incompetech.com/music/royalty-free/index.html?isrc=USUAN1100462

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Sound design by Dainius Kacinskas.

We know that there are over 10,000 cities in the world. We also know that there is something unique about every city. But what is it that makes each city feel, move, look and act so differently?

In this podcast, Professor Greg Clark CBE and Caitlin Morrissey bring together over 70 inspirational leaders from the worlds of urban history, politics, art, architecture and more to decode The DNA of Cities.

• No. of episodes: 49
• Latest episode: 2025-06-12
• Society & Culture History

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